From a conversation I had at work today.

[gridlore]

All of you probably know I'm a cancer survivor. I was amazed to find out how little most people know about this family of diseases and the effects on both patients and those around them.

So, ask me anything. Seriously. Medical, emotional, nasty details about diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy, recovery.. whatever. I'll answer as completely and accurately as possible.

For the record I had Stage IV-B Hodgkin's Disease. My early treatment and diagnosis is discussed in this article. (A few errors in the details, but it is amusing to see myself described as a "thin, pleasant, well-developed man."

Comments

[vayacondia.livejournal.com]

Wow. I bet that was a pleasant 10 days for you, huh? "Uhhhh we dunno wot's rong, u cud have AIDZ [but we already got a negative HIV test] or like, uhhh, bird flu, or, uhhhh, lupus....

The patient was subjected to ten days of hospitalization and a large battery of diagnostic tests and procedures and ten days of hospitalization, at no small cost to the patient's comfort. . . ."

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I'm not a doctor, but, um, doesn't a messed up CBC immediately alert a medical professional to a potential 1) infection or 2) cancer?!

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

The best part came when I started getting the "you might have AIDS" lecture for the fourth time that week. I don't blame them.. "he's bi, was screwing foreign hookers in the mid-80s, and has multiple partners? AIDS."

I gave enough blood (and spinal fluid, and other fluids) for all the normal infection panels. Problem was HD is damn hard to find. Had I come down with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, I would have lit up the tests like an atomic bomb. Even after a biopsy of an inflamed lymph node (I was awake for that surgery - really neat!)it took the removal and examination of my spleen to find the cancer cells.

That's the tricky thing about Hodgkins. Fairly easy to treat, but very hard to detect.

[kshandra]

And that was just the first hospital stay. It was a total of six weeks before we actually got the diagnosis.